Challenge

The Independent needed to create a digital proposition for its sister publication 'i', extending the brand online and delivering its content to a growing audience of enthusiastic young readers (18-30), through web, mobile and tablet channels.

How we helped do the right thing

We worked closely with The Independent to create indy100: a website listing 100 short, snackable stories ranked by popularity from 1 to 100. We adopted a mobile-first approach and worked in agile to engineer a bespoke CMS and a responsive site, optimising the user across mobile, tablet and web.

What happened next

To determine the popularity of each story, our proprietary algorithm takes into account reader votes, number of shares, comments a story has received and when it received them.

To help increase reader retention, we also incorporated a gamification element, integrating Gigya to reward users with points based on voting, commenting on and sharing content, which was delivered through the custom-built CMS.

Success

indy100’s target of 500,000 unique visits within the first month was hit within two weeks of launching, despite having no above the line spend or publicity attributed to it.